How Deep Do We Go? Behavior, Mind, and The 4-Billion-Year History of Life Saturday, February 29, 2020 at 2:30pm Past Event Watch the video » The starting point of this roundtable discussion is Joseph LeDoux’s book, The Deep History of Ourselves: The Four-Billion-Year Story of How We Got Conscious Brains. LeDoux’s research on how the brain detects and responds to danger helped jumpstart and define the modern science of emotion. After three decades, he came to the realization that the commonly received conception of human emotions as evolutionarily pre-formed states of mind is wrong. In The Deep History of Ourselves, he used the four-billion year story of life to explain why. His key insight was that single-cell microbes, the ancient ancestors of modern day bacteria, had the same basic survival requirements we do—they had to detect danger, search for and incorporate nutrients, balance fluids and ions, and reproduce. When we do these things, we feel fear, hunger, thirst, and pleasure, and assume that these states underlie our behavior. But the purpose of these ancient processes has little direct relation to these psychological states, which came much later. Emotions, he concluded, result from our efforts to make sense of the significant moments in our lives. And to do this requires the precise kind of brain we have. Discussing these ideas with LeDoux will be experts from a range of scientific areas, including evolutionary biology (Niklas), the cognitive neuroscience of emotion (Lindquist), psychiatry (Hurowitz), and the philosophy of consciousness (Rosenthal). Participants: Gerald Hurowitz Associate Director, The Helix Center Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center Gerald Hurowitz is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and on faculty for the past 30 years at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. He has a full-time clinical practice in psychopharmacology and neuropsychiatry in New York City. Dr. Hurowitz is a founder and Chief Medical Officer at M3 Information, an information technology company that… read more » Joseph LeDoux University Professor & Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, Center for Neural Science and the Department of Psychology, New York University Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at NYU in the Center for Neural Science. He also directs the Emotional Brain at NYU and is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical School. His work is focused on the brain… read more » Kristen Lindquist Associate Professor, Psychology & Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill View Papers / Presentations » Kristen Lindquist is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she has appointments in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Biomedical Research Imaging Center in the School of Medicine. She directs the Carolina Affective Science Lab, which uses tools from behavioral science, physiology, and neuroscience to examine… read more » Karl Joseph Niklas Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology emeritus, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University Karl J. Niklas is The Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology emeritus in the School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University. His research is in plant biophysics and evolution, with a particular focus on the evolution of biomechanics, complexity, and multicellularity. He has written over 400 peer-reviewed articles and five books [Plant Biomechanics 1992,… read more » David Rosenthal Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cognitive Science, CUNY Graduate Center View Papers / Presentations » David Rosenthal is professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, with courtesy appointments in linguistics and cognitive neuroscience. He is also the coordinator of the Graduate Center’s Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cognitive Science. He has published widely on consciousness, the mental qualities of perceiving and sensation, the representational character of… read more »
Gerald Hurowitz Associate Director, The Helix Center Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center Gerald Hurowitz is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and on faculty for the past 30 years at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. He has a full-time clinical practice in psychopharmacology and neuropsychiatry in New York City. Dr. Hurowitz is a founder and Chief Medical Officer at M3 Information, an information technology company that… read more »
Joseph LeDoux University Professor & Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, Center for Neural Science and the Department of Psychology, New York University Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at NYU in the Center for Neural Science. He also directs the Emotional Brain at NYU and is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical School. His work is focused on the brain… read more »
Kristen Lindquist Associate Professor, Psychology & Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill View Papers / Presentations » Kristen Lindquist is an Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she has appointments in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Biomedical Research Imaging Center in the School of Medicine. She directs the Carolina Affective Science Lab, which uses tools from behavioral science, physiology, and neuroscience to examine… read more »
Karl Joseph Niklas Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology emeritus, School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University Karl J. Niklas is The Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology emeritus in the School of Integrative Plant Science, Cornell University. His research is in plant biophysics and evolution, with a particular focus on the evolution of biomechanics, complexity, and multicellularity. He has written over 400 peer-reviewed articles and five books [Plant Biomechanics 1992,… read more »
David Rosenthal Professor of Philosophy and Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cognitive Science, CUNY Graduate Center View Papers / Presentations » David Rosenthal is professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, with courtesy appointments in linguistics and cognitive neuroscience. He is also the coordinator of the Graduate Center’s Interdisciplinary Concentration in Cognitive Science. He has published widely on consciousness, the mental qualities of perceiving and sensation, the representational character of… read more »